(Bloomberg) – Facebook parent company Metaplatforms has announced a new version of its powerful Llama artificial intelligence model. This is the latest effort to keep pace with similar technologies such as Open AI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
Most Read Articles on Bloomberg
Llama 3, announced Thursday, is an upgraded version of the AI model Meta released last summer. Chief product officer Chris Cox said the model, Llama 2, had been downloaded 170 million times. Llama 2 was advertised as open source, but its license included restrictions, including requiring permission from companies with more than 700 million users.
Meta, the world’s largest social media company, uses Llama 3 to run its own in-app AI assistant called MetaAI. The assistant exists across several products, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses. The company says the MetaAI assistant will be updated for users as early as Thursday.
Many large tech companies are racing to develop AI products and services, spending billions of dollars in high-tech chips and employee resources to develop large-scale language models and other AI-focused products. . Meta uses AI to power its content feed and recommendations, but also to improve ad targeting and virtual reality headsets.
Llama 3 “leads the industry in many benchmarks for a model of this size,” Cox said. “We are no longer playing catch-up to create best-in-class models.”
Cox added that the company is also working on several versions of Llama 3 that will be released as updates.
Meta has been using AI in its products for years, but in the past year it has become more committed to the new technology, with executives touting its benefits in public and interviews. Investors are optimistic about Meta’s use of AI in its products. Shares rose 2.7% to $507.25 as of 1:02 p.m. Thursday in New York, and are up 43% so far this year.
–With assistance from Rachel Metz.
(Corrects download numbers in second paragraph of article published on April 18th. Previous version corrected use of AI model in headline.)
Most Read Articles on Bloomberg Businessweek
©2024 Bloomberg LP
